Date: 2014-10-13

In light of current growing global concerns about public health risks related to the spread of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) from West Africa, with some patients entering the United States and other countries, the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch® (IAED™) has updated its Emerging Infectious Diseases Surveillance (EIDS) Tool for computerized emergency dispatch center software in eleven, in-demand languages.

The Tool contains a list of possible signs, symptoms, and epidemiological risk factors—as defined by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO)— including any recent patient travel and disease exposure information that might be observed or known about a given “patient of interest,” for emergency dispatch centers through a software interface of IAED protocols, including Priority Dispatch Corp’s™ (PDC™) ProQA® Paramount versions 5.0/5.1 and Legacy version 3.4.

The updated EIDS Tool alert is available now (click here) to emergency communication centers around the world in English for ProQA users in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. Beginning on Monday, Oct. 13, it will also be available in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Dutch, Chinese, Lithuanian, and Malay.

“This list of possible signs and symptoms is extensive as ProQA is trying to capture information that might be useful for associated applications like FirstWatch™ (real-time data-trend surveillance software) to mine looking for emerging patient trends and patterns, or for notification of local health authorities and/or responder crews,” said Dr. Jeff Clawson, creator of the emergency dispatch protocols and IAED co-founder.

Clawson said that an upcoming update to the EIDS Tool will include an “Infection Prevention Instruction,” and that there will continue to be subsequent updates to the Tool as the public health risk to Ebola evolves.

In the interest of public health, the IAED has also approved the release of a manual protocol card that is being posted Oct. 9 as a PDF on its website for non-ProQA users as well as non-Medical Priority Dispatch System™ (MPDS®) users to utilize.